Network Function Virtualization is a term or a name of a proposed architecture of telecom services as published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in a series of documents available from the ETSI website. NFV uses generic hardware platform and software adapted for the generic hardware platform. Thus, NFV creates a network much more flexible and dynamic than a legacy communication network. In NFV-based networks, a Virtual Network Function (VNF) decouples the software implementation of the network function from the infrastructure resources it runs on by virtualization. A network service is based on one or VNFs and/or Physical Network Functions (PNFs), their interconnections, and chaining definitions. The VNFs can be executed on almost any generic hardware processing facility. Therefore, VNFs may be installed, removed, and moved between hardware facilities, much more easily, less costly and thus, more frequently. The flexibility of the NFV-based network enhances the means available for optimizing the network's capacity and performance.
In today's networks, both hardware-based networks and virtual networks, it is a challenge to actively test and monitor functionality and availability of “transparent” network services (e.g. transparent proxies, firewalls, and other security services, etc.). In order to actively test and monitor such network services, probing mechanisms are typically required to be inserted into the network topology. This is a manual and time consuming operation.
There is thus a need for addressing these and/or other issues associated with the prior art.